With the team’s impending move to Southern California, all invested in the Sacramento Kings—be it with their hearts or with their wallets—are in a constant state of preoccupation and anxiety.
At Maloof Sports and Entertainment, the management wing of the Kings, calls to the central office go unanswered and messages sit idly awaiting playback. Such is also the case at KHTK 1140, the AM sports broadcast network serving greater Sacramento, where emails addressed to the program director for the Grant Napear Show are no doubt marked ‘unread’ (if not ‘spam’).
Napear, like any number of ushers, mascots, and ticket takers, has no guarantee of continued employment after the Kings play their final game of the 2010-11 season on April 13 against the rival Los Angeles Lakers. No matter the team’s performance on the court—which has been somewhat improved since before the All-Star Break in February—there is no shortage of dedicated and talented people who will soon likely be looking for work. (Note: No formal decision on the team’s future has yet been made.)
One who will have no trouble finding it, though, is Napear, the television voice of the Kings as well as periodic contributor to ESPN Radio, the San Jose Sharks, and the Oakland Raiders.
“You’re going to love Newport Beach, Grant,” quips Greg Beacham of the Associated Press, joking on Napear’s radio show about the advantages of relocating to Anaheim (including proximity to the Real Housewives of Orange County).
“Don’t even—I’m not even going there,” replies Napear, attempting to avoid any discussion of his post-Sacramento plans.
For a man not known to be shy about sharing his every opinion on air, Napear is calculated when speaking of his bosses and their commitment to staying in Sacramento—perhaps on strict and explicit orders from above.
The frenzy in town is obvious to even the most casual observer, as fans argue about whether they will remain loyal if the team’s jersey reads anything but ‘Sacramento’, following breaking news on the smallest of facial expressions cast by Kings officials.
On a recent radio show, Napear recalled eager ticket-buyers camped outside for days in front of the old Arco Arena—a temporary structure converted to offices three years after it was built.
Such is the passion small market fans must have for their club—so is the passion a native New Yorker must have after touching down in the Central Valley to cover them.
Fans today are desperate to dream up plans to influence the Maloof brothers, Joe and Gavin, to keep the team in Sacramento—they also struggle to cope with their probable inability to make any impact on such a decision.
But for those for whom the Kings are an essential part of their livelihood, the show must go on—enthusiastically greeting the patrons and tearing the tickets, introducing the players and supporting the team during battles both on and off the court.
It wouldn’t be surprising for Gary Gerould, radio play-by-play man, and Jerry Reynolds, TV commentator and director of player personnel, to step down were the team to leave. Both men grayed after having been with the Kings organization for nearly their entire tenure in Sacramento. (Gerould announced his 2,000th game this season.)
The Maloofs have been mum since word broke of negotiations to move the team to the Honda Center in Anaheim—an only slightly newer but substantially more luxurious stadium than the recently renamed Natomas arena. (Power Balance, makers of a discredited line of performance enhancing wristbands, has decided to postpone hoisting its name atop the Kings’ facility until the future of the team is known.)
It is no secret that the club needs a new building if it is to stay in town. Seattle recently lost its team to Oklahoma City under similar circumstances, just as Kansas City lost the Kings to Sacramento more than 25 years ago.
But getting an arena built in the first place was not without cost or controversy.
After purchasing the Kings with the intention of bringing the team to Sacramento, a group of local developers spared little effort battling zoning regulations, environmental challenges, and significant flood risk in order to realize the speculative potential of homes and businesses in North Natomas. A multipurpose sports complex, planned as the centerpiece for such development, was touted as essential to shaking Sacramento’s ‘cow town’ image.
With the identity of the city at stake, opponents faced residents clamoring for cultural amenities as well as the prospects for new jobs.
“I’d much rather be fighting a chemical plant or an oil refinery than a sports complex, because then we’d have 95 percent of the public on our side instead of maybe 50 percent,” the president of the Environmental Council of Sacramento said in 1987.
Heather Fargo, then member of the Natomas Community Association, insisted in a 1986 article that anti-growth advocates were unfairly characterized as “anti-sports, so therefore anti-Sacramento and [even] anti-American.”
Sacramento sports fans won. North Natomas is now dotted with houses and anchored by regional businesses employing thousands. A building moratorium is the result of a 2008 FEMA report designating the area a Special Flood Hazard Area. The cost to repair the levees is estimated at $780 million.
What concessions developers will require to build a new stadium is not entirely certain. In likely-too-late fashion, the City-Council-commissioned feasibility study to explore the issue won’t be complete until sometime after May.
With the NBA recently granting an extension for the Maloofs to file official documents requesting to relocate the team, an April 14 Board of Governors meeting may very well provide final word on whether the deal with Anaheim has been made.
For a consummate pro like Napear, despite all signs pointing in the direction of impending doom, little can take attention away from the game being played on the court. Grant still puts his headset on each night and goes to work.
To turn on the television and to not hear Napear’s emphatic, penetrating voice, they will have official confirmation that the bottom has fallen out—the end of big-league sports in sleepy Sacramento.
This article appears in the March 25, 2011 edition of The Davis Enterprise.
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